Articles and Analysis

Do you think the actions Barack Obama has taken as president have increased the chances of a terrorist attack against the U.S., or don't you think so?

26% Have increased
72% Have not

Regardless of how you feel about the war in Afghanistan in general, do you favor or oppose President Obama's plan to send about 20 thousand more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to stabilize the situation there?

Comments

change:

well, this also means that the obama administration polls these policies well. Why wouldn't they when political capital rest on the popularity of your policies. I can just picture Emanuel rushing a set of policy purposals to Greenberg so that they can be polled. Politics as usual.

Presidents have access to information we do not have. With all due respect, I do not want a president who supports policies that are "popular" on any given year...rather I want a President who does the right thing, even when that thing is unpopular. Popular opinion is not always right, especially when the general population does not have acces sto all the facts.
If one of the terrorists Obama frees from Gitmo is found later involved in a major terrorist attack on the United States, we will see the fastest fall in presidential approvalratings in the history of polling!

Unfortunately, you have missed something very obvious; Gitmo creates terrorists. If you found out your father was being tortured by American forces what you do? You would surely be upset, and if you uneducated which judging by your right-wing point of view you maybe, then you may try a terrorist attack and exact revenge. And your knee-jerk that is to blame Obama for a terrorists attack by a GITMO detainee is even more ludacris. What do you want him to do: forever keep the torture house open, and deny terrorists all rights? You have a very extreme and unreasoned view.

Right, I know, I know, its all America's fault....GITMO is breeding terrorists, I know, I know. Terrorism has existed for decades, but its all GITMO's fault. Radical Islamic terorists hit the WTC in hte 90's...they hit it again in 2001. All GITMO right? GITMO is just the place we put these people when they are "caught"....see in the real world you have to detain people who would do you harm....setting them free allows them to do that harm. The left for decades has been blind to the fact there are some out there who would do us harm....
But I know, its all our fault. If not for America and our horrible policies, ther would be no terrorists and the world would live in a pefect left wing utopian paradise.
Why is it the left blames everything and everyone other than the actual terrorists? If your side used half the energy you used attacking your own country and blaming your own country then we would have won this war on terrorism in 6 months.

First of all nowhere did i say it was America's fault, i'm just advocating a smarter strategy. And yes, were not perfect sometimes it maybe our fault, below i have listed a few reasons why it maybe our fault:

- we presented false intelligence before going to war with Iraq= 500 000 Iraqi's are dead

-Abu Gahrib and GITMO - torture facilities

- We support Israel while they kill Palestinians at alarming rates, and destroy their homes and properties.

-George Bush prior to the Iraq war said "the crusades have begun"

These are all facts, I hope you can live with them, or you can just keep telling yourself how Great American is (which it is) and turn a blind eye to everything else.. one more question- do u listen to rush limbaugh!

You make some semi-valid points. The intel Bush cited as part of his reasong behyind the Iraq war was intel gathered by numerous countires and numerous countries agreed it was valid, including former President Clinton. Bush simply decided to act on it rather than giving the 2 millionth verbal warning. While the Iraq war is certianly a debatable topic where I personally beleive both sides have valid reasoning, it was not just Bush, indeed the entire western world had similar intel.
I do not beleive Gitmo was a place of torture. There were numerous international groups monitoring the facility and the Red Cross had an office on site. I do not consider detention a form of torture. Nor do I consider removing certain comforts and freedoms from terrorists an act of torture. You asked me what we should do with them, keep them forever? the answer is yes. If you have terrorists who wish us harm in various ways, you only have two options. Detain them as you would someone serving a life sentence or impose the death penalty. To simply free them makes no sense.
You speak of Israel...but you fail to say they are bombed nearly every day....acts of terrorism are dealt on Israel every day....women and children are rotinely killed on both sides. That is a conflict that has been going on for centuries. I make no excuses for our support for Israel, we should support them.
And back to Gitmo, if you feel detaining terrorists breeds more terrorists, then what do you propose we do? Let them all loose? Apologize to the world for are barbaric behavior and hope they will forgive us? And hope they treat us nicely....is it the old liberal theory of if we are nice then everyone else will be nice you wish to deploy?
The simple fact is that evil exists in the world, America chooses to confront it rather than surrendur to it. America while it has its flaws is essentially a good and noble country. The war on terrorism is not our fault, it is not of our doing...and our responses to it such as Gitmo are not to blame for more terrorist breeding. Terrorism is caused by hopelessnes and dispare because there homleands do not offer them a quality of life that is satisfactory...as a result they turn to radical relgious leaders for hope and self worth. Look at the pirates, they do what they do because there is no path way to a quality life in there home countries. Terrorism is a mixture of economic and social conditions that prevent one from fully expereincing liberty and the fruits of that liberty.
I do not blame Gitmo, I do not blame Bush, terorism is a problem dating back decades...it is only now they are gaining technology which makes them much more dangerous which is why verbal warnings and hundreds of UN resoltuions simply do not have the effect that is desired.
You can not defeat an enemy armed with a gun if you are only armed with words and resolutions.
The left is using torture as it has used racism for years....to try and identify any behavior not in line with the lefts thinking. Watch Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC who thinks only allowing three meals a day is a form of torture. Your side has molested the meaning of the word as it has racism....and so many others to try and simply gain political swagger.

Please stop with your revisionist history; it is a clear and established fact that the bush admin. cherry picked intelligence, while ignoring evidence to the contrary.

Your assertion that we hold people with no trial is simply anti-american, we always give people their day in court, even the geneva conventions would require it. If you don't people were being tortured in GITMO, then please do your research, this has been a well-documented fact! warterboarding, prisoners dying in custody, but now they cleaned it up a bit.

As for Israel they are killing people at a ration of 8-1, and their soldiers where t-shirts bragging about killing pregnant women "one shot= to kills" from the Israeli paper Haaretz. The numbers don't add up amigo.

Bush admin tortured, and held people without any trial- that is anti-american no matter who does it.

One question; when we kill 500 000 people in Iraq, how do you expect that not to breed more terrorists? how about the fact we have people have been killed in our custody due to the harsh conditions we exposed them to- let me guess- no matter what America's right always- think think!

Its not revisionist history my freind. I guess if you get your news from the MSM then it is, but in reality everyone was on the same page when it came to WMD and Iraq, but that is an old argument.
I do not consider waterborading torture as many AMericans do not. If we capture terroist #1 while he is deploying a russian suitcase nuke his group bought o nthe black market....then yes I think we should do what it takes to get the information out of him...a simple "please" does not cut it for me. Prison is harsh...if you want to see torture go look at the prisions in Cuba, Mexico, China, N. Korea, Russia, your Arab country of choice, Nigeria, etc, etc....then look at our prison facilities.......they are not comparable.
You seem to want to fight everything out in courts, you cannot put them in US courts, 1. they are not american citizens and 2. you cannot put them on trial because vital US intel gathering might be exposed....thi is a fact you wish to ignore.
It is unfortunate you cannot see reality for what it is. I truly fear one of the terrorists Obama will free from Gitmo will come back to kill many many Americans. What you also fail to realize is that if the terrorist being detained was not engaging in terrorist activities he would not be detained. Inthe real world there are consequences to actions.
We've seen the UN and Obama already verbally warn N. Korea about its nuclear program and missile launches...but without the will to use actual force to enforce your verbal warnings, then what good are warnings at all?
Before you start demanding trials for terrorists think about the consequences of doing that to our military, undercover agents and overall intel gathering system.
Before you lcaim various forms of intirrogation is torture, consider what valuable information you may miss out on...the CIA has already made clear that waterborading has led to the prevention of several attacks. I for one will not sacrifise innocent people for the comfort of a terrorist.
Be careful what you wish for. You succeeded in electing a pacifist...someone more willing to appease than to confront, but as history as taught us, that can be a deadly mistake.

Let me also add that I agree with you on the treatment of terrorists if it were 50 years ago. Times are different. terrorism has evolved which means we to must evolve. Technology and the access to that technology allows even small groups of terrorist sto literally kill millions of people in a single attack. 50 years ago most would agree it was not possible for 19 men to kill 3,000 people and bring down two of the tallest buildings i nthe world. With nuclear technology becoming more and more accessible to rogue nations, with terroriss becoming more organized through the use of communication technology, we simply have no choice but to modify our practices. That means we cannot allow them to expose our undercover network or intel gathering srouces by putting them on trial, and it means you cannot simply ask them what they know about the nuke in in downtown Seattle, we must have the information because the cost is to high not to know. Its different than questioning a uniformed soldier on a conventional battlefield who probably knows very little.
50 years ago terorism was marginalized by its inability to cause harm or death on a large scale...its the technology and access to it that changes the equasion. Terorism is not like fighting the Soviets where MAD applied, in most cases these terorists beleive they are rewarded in death. If we do not modify our techniques, if we cannot break out of the thinking which was the norm 50 years ago, then we are doomed to a future where terrorists dicatate the terms to us.
There are numerous groups now working to obtain nuclear or biological weapons for the sole purpose of using them on us. No kind words, no apologies will make them think otherwise. This is indeed a mortal enemy as Nazi Germany was....you can only achive victory by doing what it takes....because if we fail as America, there is simply no other force in the world capable of defeating them. So if America is defeated or prevented from doing what we need to by our own leftists, then the result will be the loss of life on a scale the Earth has never seen before.

@stillow,
Okay, let me get this straight since terrorism and warfare is more technologically advanced- its no longer wrong to torture. Listen you sick right wing creep, but our military is made up of 18-28 year old kids mainly, you sure you want to put them through that? Do you know the type of trauma they will endure for the rest of their lives if you make them torture others for you, so that your more protected. Remember your buddy Cheney and Bush changed laws with corrupt lawyers such Gonzales, who is set to be indicted for war-crimes this week in spain- OUR ALLY! -let me guess cause their indicting those guys for something that is against our own values- not torturing= their not american, thats what BILLO-the clown thinks.

And your right wing rant about nuclear weapons is even more corrupt, didn't bush and the boys take us to Iraq for nuclear weapons- how come there were none? How come every time Iran boost about making progress with nuclear weapons- turns out they lied? This whole nuclear things is BS, even if they had it they couldn't attack us given our ability to shoot it down, So please don't give me a failed excuse that was also given by a failed president!

Overall, your goal is to try to paint all of America's adversaries as vicious unruly villans. How much thought have you given to some of the facts: We hundreds of thousands more then they do, We support an Israeli regime that brags about killing women (IDF soldiers wearing images on t-shits courtesy of Haaretz)? We had abu Gahrid- you gotta watch Standard operating procedure down load it on Aries

and for the record: You loons on NOV. 4 got your but kicked! You are a fear-mongering right wing scum, your the little church goers in highschol that get raped by some guy you call father- and you biblical crap is leading these wars- Why else did Bush say" the crusades have begun?" It was too please his lunatic evangelical base! So do us a favor, and go on your fraudulent tea parties!

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